I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013
BENEDICTUS PP XVI

On one hand, I am floored by the news. On the other hand, I am glad he is able to rest and enjoy retirement. I think this will set a healthy precedent.

He was Archbishop of Munich for 5 years and then was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was also responsible for investigating sexual abuse cases.

You should watch the HBO documentary that just came out called Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

Yes, we know all that. Really, you can't expect these repetitions to amount to an inference of fact of cover-up, can you? The reality is that although reports were supposed to go to Rome, the incidence of coverup neglected doing so. That's not to say that the problem would have been resolved. It's only to say that there was never a moment where Cardinal Ratzinger was given a report of a priest, asked to decide what to do, and decided to cover it up.

If you want to tarnish his legacy, then prepare to bring damning evidence.

The last Pope to do this was Gregory XII...in 1415...so this is NOT something that happens every day...I'm frankly shocked by this.

It's something that was likely to happen sooner not later. The ability of modern science to keep a body going when the mind is gone necessitates the ability to "retire", even from the position of Pope, lest the Church be left headless for a protracted period.

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"I love signature blocks on the Internet. I get to put whatever the hell I want in quotes, pick a pretend author, and bang, it's like he really said it." George Washington

Yes, we know all that. The reality is that although reports were supposed to go to Rome, the incidence of coverup neglected doing so. That's not to say that the problem would have been resolved. It's only to say that there was never a moment where Cardinal Ratzinger was given a report of a priest, asked to decide what to do, and decided to cover it up.

So you were privy to what Ratzinger was and wasn't told back in 2001? I wasn't aware cardinals ran their official correspondence through Iowa grade schools.

That's a pretty high bar. Consider an earlier Benedict (IX), who auctioned off the Papal throne in order to get married. Soon after, he realized married life wasn't for him (he preferred rape), so he recruited the help of a king and took over Rome again.

So you were privy to what Ratzinger was and wasn't told back in 2001? I wasn't aware cardinals ran their official correspondence through Iowa grade schools.

When hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, a team of lawyers will uncover pretty much anything. Of course, you realize, being a highly accomplished historian, that 'being there' isn't the only way to understand facts of a situation. Right? You take yourself as some Civil War historian, yet you certainly weren't alive at that time.

Yes, we know all that. Really, you can't expect these repetitions to amount to an inference of fact of cover-up, can you? The reality is that although reports were supposed to go to Rome, the incidence of coverup neglected doing so. That's not to say that the problem would have been resolved. It's only to say that there was never a moment where Cardinal Ratzinger was given a report of a priest, asked to decide what to do, and decided to cover it up.

If you want to tarnish his legacy, then prepare to bring damning evidence.

ok..

Quote:

Late last week, the Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung broke the story of a priest, now identified as Peter Hullermann from the Essen diocese, who had been accused of sexual abuse -- including forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex -- and sent to Munich for therapy in 1980, with Ratzinger's consent. Hullermann was then given a pastoral assignment in the archdiocese, apparently without Ratzinger's knowledge, where he went on to commit other acts of abuse for which he was criminally convicted in 1986 -- well after Ratzinger had relocated to Rome in 1982. Hullermann paid a court-imposed fine and served a sentence on probation. Despite that, he continued to serve in a variety of posts in the archdiocese until March 15, when he was formally suspended.

The cleric who served as Ratzinger's vicar general in Munich, Gerhard Gruber, assumed "full responsibility" for the original 1980 assignment, insisting that there were more than 1,000 priests in the archdiocese at the time and that Ratzinger entrusted that kind of personnel matter to subordinates.

To be sure, not everyone was ready to accept that version of events.
"We find it extraordinarily hard to believe that Ratzinger didn't reassign the predator, or know about the reassignment," said Barbara Blaine, of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the leading advocacy group for sex abuse victims in the Catholic church.

The revelation about Ratzinger's Munich years is part of a mounting sex abuse crisis in Germany, with more than 300 allegations of abuse in various church-run institutions

Quote:

Ratzinger was personally responsible for one high-profile case which, in the eyes of critics, confirmed the Vatican's unwillingness to confront the problem: Charges of sexual abuse against Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

Accusations that Maciel had abused members of the controversial order had circulated for several decades, but in 1998 a group of former members dumped the case directly in Ratzinger's lap. They filed a canonical complaint with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, since its disciplinary section handles certain serious offenses under canon law, including abuse of the sacrament of penance, and Maciel was accused of absolving his victims in the confessional.

That complaint languished until late 2001, when the mushrooming crisis in the States put new pressure on the Vatican to engage the sexual abuse issue across the board. Still, even though an investigation was launched, no action was taken against Maciel for the next four years -- in part, critics said, because he was protected by influential Vatican patrons, up to and including John Paul II himself.

We've had Popes that started wars, did nothing but screw around (literally), etc. ad infinitum. None of them were Adolf Hitler, but many were about as far from Saintly as you can imagine.

Yeah, humanity has evolved a bit, and Popes along with it....can't compare Popes from the present to Popes from 500 years ago, just silly. Our US political leaders aren't raping and pillaging either, you know? Well, most of them...

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Better to be the bastard child of a king and his whore than to be a ****ing peasant at the shite homer trough.

Well he lasted longer than I thought. I'm so ambivalent to the church these days. It's kind of sad really.

And it's not just the pedophilia that has turned me away. The Catholic parish in which I was raised seems to have gone from "we want you to multiply so we have plenty of souls to send to heaven," to "We want your money because you're not producing enough souls".

The parish gives the perception of money over all. Does that seem unfair?

When hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, a team of lawyers will uncover pretty much anything. Of course, you realize, being a highly accomplished historian, that 'being there' isn't the only way to understand facts of a situation. Right? You take yourself as some Civil War historian, yet you certainly weren't alive at that time.

Yeah, humanity has evolved a bit, and Popes along with it....can't compare Popes from the present to Popes from 500 years ago, just silly. Our US political leaders aren't raping and pillaging either, you know? Well, most of them...

Right, well, don't say "ever" then.

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"I love signature blocks on the Internet. I get to put whatever the hell I want in quotes, pick a pretend author, and bang, it's like he really said it." George Washington